


for darkness is as light

by fav_littleleaf



Series: Sixth Form AU [3]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Age Difference, Impact Play, M/M, Non-Sexual Kink, Power Exchange, Power Play, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship, Trans Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Vaginal Sex, some meta power shit as a bonus
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-12
Updated: 2021-01-12
Packaged: 2021-03-16 16:27:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28709700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fav_littleleaf/pseuds/fav_littleleaf
Summary: Jon’s admissions interview for Oxford is coming up, and Elias kindly helps him prepare.Jon, meanwhile, gets his first taste of the Beholding.
Relationships: Elias Bouchard | Jonah Magnus/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: Sixth Form AU [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2092527
Comments: 8
Kudos: 31





	for darkness is as light

**Author's Note:**

> as unrealistic as this entire situation is, it was weirdly important to me to have fairly realistic interview questions and answers, which once again has occurred only because of my friend’s help. thank you <3
> 
> NB this is like 95% nonsexual kink, because we just wanna love our kinky ace Jon, but then Elias was… Elias, and. yeah

“I still don’t see why this is necessary,” Jon grumbles. 

The blindfold catches on a lock of his hair as Elias ties it behind his head. “Careful,” he mutters, but before he can raise his hands to intercede, Elias has fixed and tied the knot.

And just like that, he’s officially consented to the dark.

Elias places a kiss on his nose, and his hands return to stroke over Jon’s bare waist. “You’re breaking the first rule, Jon. No petulance.”

Jon scowls, but doesn’t argue further. Surely they’d want someone with personality, for goodness sake. (He doesn’t _want_ to be tetchy, it’s just that this is kind of the most important interview of his life that Elias isn’t taking seriously.)

Elias rewards him for his silence with a kiss that Jon immediately sighs into. Even after a year of Elias pursuing him, even when he’s about to be tied up and who knows what else, the softness of Elias’s mouth still makes everything go fuzzy and quiet round the edges.

He moves away, just a little, so Jon can still feel his breath against his lips. “You’re so pretty for me, and I haven’t even tied you up yet.”

Jon shivers in anticipation. It always feels good when Elias restrains him. The more ways, the better, and maybe it’ll help him _think_ for once. It had been difficult, lately; the sheer anxiety for his future was preventing him from retaining anything useful. 

That’s the only reason he’s agreed to this rubbish.

But his hope for being able to think shudders to a stop when Elias’s hands trail slowly down his hips, towards the crease of his thighs. “Perhaps you’ll permit me a distraction?”

Jon swats his hands away. “Rules, remember?”

(He may be wet already, but that’s not relevant, and he certainly doesn’t want Elias to find out, or the _entire_ thought train will derail.)

Elias breathes a low growl over his ear, and his fingers dig into Jon’s hips. “You have no idea how much self-control it’s taking to set any store by your rules.”

“Fuck _off_ —” Jon shimmies forward, trying to shake him off without crashing into something in his blindness, but he just ends up on his toes, with his arms hooked around Elias’s neck. “I swear, you are not going to be able to handle it when I’m at Oxford.”

 _“If_ you’re at Oxford.” 

“Are you sabotaging me? Is that what this is?”

Elias laughs, and Jon yelps when he’s suddenly being lifted into the air. Being airborne feels light and fluttery and exhilarating in Elias’s arms, but then with another _plop,_ his back hits the plush of Elias’s mattress. Jon can’t see, but he can feel the warmth of his body as Elias pins him to the bed. The fabric of his waistcoat and trousers brush against Jon’s bare skin, and he wraps his legs around him instinctively in response, wanting as much of his body as he can possibly touch.

“Darling,” Elias whispers into his ear, “I can’t think of anything I’d rather have than to see you take the world by storm.”

Jon is suddenly glad for the blindfold. “I like you better when you’re mean.”

“Mm. We’ll get to that.” Elias’s lips brush over his jaw and neck, and Jon moans a little, unable to help it. “But for now, I want you on your knees.”

As Elias gets up to allow him room, Jon obeys, perching on his knees near the edge of the bed. Only a moment passes before he feels Elias’s hands on him again, this time accompanied by the rough scratch of rope.

“Spread your legs, please,” Elias murmurs, his hand warm on Jon’s thigh. “And feet vertical, on your toes. That’s it.”

Jon breathes in deeply, trying to get himself into the proper headspace. He trusts Elias, trusts in his gentleness and his discipline. He’s just a thing to accept input, to sway gently in the breeze, or the storm; whatever decides to come at him, he will bend with it. He _will._

“Relax, love. I won’t hurt you.”

“I know,” Jon whispers.

It’s not until Elias begins to wind the rope under his ankle and around his thigh that he begins to relax. The rough, frayed texture drags his attention away from his inner experience and towards what is _real_ and _now._ No Oxford, no future, not even this bedroom — just Elias’s warm fingertips on his inner thigh, just his soft lips pressed against his forehead. The feeling of being tied down ironically frees him, lets him fly while his physical body stays behind.

Jon lets the sensations take him into a reverie as Elias moulds his body as he pleases, murmuring directions interlaced with occasional praise. Apparently Elias can manage to keep the affection out of his touch as well as Jon can pretend that he isn’t so very weak to it.

“I hope you’re revising in your head, Jon. I won’t go easy on you.”

Jon sighs. Everything feels fuzzy. “I am. Regency… stuff. Really great.”

Elias laughs softly as he secures the final knot on Jon’s thighs. “Is that so?”

“Yeah. George III, a real piece of work, right?”

“Brilliant. We’ll take you.”

Jon’s cheeks flush as he hears Elias’s indulgent smile. He has a funny mind to apologize, convince him he actually does know stuff, but he’s not really sure he does. God, imagine if he actually said — 

“I’m almost done,” Elias says gently. Jon hears a rustling noise; perhaps he’s reaching for something else. “Hands above your head.” 

Elias makes quick work of his wrists. He binds them together above Jon’s head, then apparently steps away to retrieve something else.

Without warning, his arms and shoulders are pulled up, taut.

Jon gasps with it, his entire body at attention. He can’t feel Elias. Jon knows he must be just next to the bed, but he feels unmoored anyway, unable to reach out for him in any way that matters.

“Beautiful,” Elias says softly. His index and middle fingers trail down the side of Jon’s neck, over his collarbone. “Are you ready to begin?”

Jon shuts his eyes tighter, as if that even matters under the blindfold. Elias knows him far too well, knows how to wield tenderness as a weapon, and it’s even sharper when he’s spread open and on display like this. But hadn’t that been what attracted him so? The thrill of being known and devoured, but loved even still?

Jon swallows and forces himself to nod.

“Words, please, as if you would actually like to succeed.” Elias’s voice takes on a sterner quality than before, and his hands fall away from Jon’s skin once more. “And with proper respect.”

The words fall from his lips with ease. “Yes, sir.”

“In what ways, Jon, would you venture that history repeats itself? Is it possible for us to learn from our mistakes?”

The weird floaty anxiety and lack of touch let his knee-jerk response through unfiltered. “God, _no.”_

Silence follows, where they both contemplate Jon’s gross transgression. Then — 

The sharp _whack_ of Elias’s crop registers in his ears first. The pain floods over his arse in a white-hot flash, and the rope tugs and burns at his wrists as his body jerks in protest. Somehow he manages to bite down on a whimper.

Elias kisses his cheek. “You’re going to have to try a little harder than that, my darling.”

Jon sucks in a deep breath and tries to re-route his feelings into logic. His arse stings in protest, and he tugs himself up by his wrists to relieve the pressure on his feet. Mistakes? He certainly couldn’t learn from them. Historical concepts flash towards and past him, but none of them stay long enough for him to scrape together an answer.

“I-I don’t—” he starts. His throat feels dry and uncooperative, and he desperately wishes he could see. “I think historical events are driven less by… individuals, and more by underlying social power balances. So… I mean, whether we can learn from our mistakes is not really a relevant question, is it?”

“Is it?” Elias’s lips find the corner of his mouth. They’re softer than they have any right to be.

“Yes. Power balances repeat themselves in all sorts of ways between one period and another. Industrial tensions, the political ramifications of the rise of a certain power over another…”

He tries to go on, give Elias specific examples, but then Elias’s lips are on his, and the flesh of his inner thigh is similarly claimed.

“What’s that, Jon? You seem to be losing your train of thought,” Elias whispers into his mouth.

Jon moans when Elias’s tongue teases at his bottom lip. Elias is warm and soft and inviting against Jon’s nakedness: his skin, his mouth, all open for Elias. It feels so complete in its humility that it _becomes_ power. He luxuriates in its comforting embrace as his already tenuous hold on knowledge slips away.

“Since you seem to have trouble with that one, why don’t we try some less metahistorical questions?”

“Elias,” Jon says. He’s going to go insane from whiplash. “I can’t do this if you don’t let me —”

Elias strikes his arse again, sharper than before. “I’m not Elias right now, and if you call me that again, I _will_ bend you over this bed until you scream. Is that understood?”

 _“Professor_ Bouchard _,_ then.”

Elias just tsks at him and moves away. “I’ll reiterate how important this exercise is. Your interviewers won’t know about your daily performance in class. The only thing you have to show for your entire life is _twenty minutes_.”

“And what do you have to show for yours?”

“Excuse me?”

The words rush out of his mouth; they lie suspended in the tension of Elias’s expectant silence. “Sorry, I-I didn’t — fuck, I’m sorry —”

He expects another blow, but instead Elias tugs his upper body forward by the rope at his wrists. He yelps at the sudden subversion of gravity. Since his legs and ankles are bound, his body falls helplessly into Elias.

Elias’s voice is dark and threatening at his ear. “Corollary to rule one, Jon, that I assumed went without saying: _don’t insult your interviewer.”_

“Yes, sir,” he says breathlessly.

Elias shoves him back, and Jon earns his strike then: straight across his chest. He cries out with a ragged breath and arches on the bed, the searing pain rising and ripping him apart. He doesn’t have time to catch his breath before Elias hits him again, on the same tender flesh. Tears prick at the corners of his eyes.

“We’re going to try again, love,” Elias says. “Will you behave?”

One of the tears escapes, but it gets caught in the fabric of the blindfold. “Yes, sir.”

Elias steps back again, and Jon can no longer feel his presence outside of the rational knowledge that he is still there. “You talk of the rise of certain powers over another. Can you tell me where power lay in Regency-era England?”

Every nerve in his body is sensitized, on fire; his chest and arse sting horribly. But he’s determined to answer. The pain clears his head with the brilliance of a boiling sun.

“It depends on how we conceptualize power. Economic, political, societal. It’s an era where all these different powers were diverging, when before, groups that had one kind of power often had the others, too.”

Elias makes an encouraging noise from somewhere in front of him. Jon continues babbling, as if he talks faster, Elias wouldn’t hit him.

“But here we had groups of people with increasing social influence, who were shut out politically. The upheavals of the 1830s and 40s happened because of the growing tension between the different classes, even though things might have seemed stable on the surface. Who officially had power is easy to answer, but who _really_ has it is the much more interesting question.”

The end of his answer falls on silence. He squirms a little against the bonds. Relying so heavily on his hearing, only to hear nothing, is a little frightening. 

“El— Professor Bouchard? Are you okay?” Jon tenses up, expecting to be struck for some mistake that he missed, or for being too enthusiastic.

But all that happens is a warm mouth closing over his own. Jon whimpers into Elias, who presses his advantage and slips his tongue into Jon’s mouth, hot and wanting. He starts to pull away in confusion, but Elias pulls him forward and steps right up to the edge of the bed at the same time. The result is his back arched, nipples thrust up against Elias’s chest, his throat bared in a taut line.

Elias holds him there, bites his neck — and while Jon is distracted, he slaps the crop down on the outside of his thighs. He doesn’t do it just once, but two — three times.

“ _Fuck_ , Elias —”

“Tell me about the king, Jon. How much power does he have?”

His head is dizzy with pain but also bright with it; he feels like a phoenix burst into crimson flame and risen again from ash. When he answers, he knows this time that he’s correct.

“The king is an ultimate arbiter, but if the king has to use his power, that means something is already going wrong. He can only arbitrate when matters are already finely balanced. Earlier in the 18th century, the king wasn’t that relevant because the elite landowners really held all the power. But when no one’s really dominant? Then he can tip the world in his favour.”

Elias is still holding him close. His limbs ache with the awkwardness of his position, half-pressed against Elias and half lifted precariously off the bed.

“And right now, in this room,” Elias whispers, “who holds the power?”

Jon knows what he’s supposed to say: that it’s Elias, that it always has been and always will be. But he wants to know what will happen if he doesn’t; he feels compelled by some unseen force to step off the cliff of what is familiar, to trust in the promise that he will be carried.

It’s ridiculous, absurd, and possibly the stupidest thing he’s ever thought or felt.

“I do,” Jon says.

In that moment, he swears the world turns on its axis. Everything that was familiar becomes strange. Everything that was silent becomes loud; his head is a quagmire of shouts and static. And everything that he thought he didn’t know now lies pliant at the edges of his vision. He is blinded only in name.

He can hear Elias breathing heavily, and Jon turns his face towards him in wonder. Is he feeling the same thing?

Elias’s fingertips find Jon’s jaw, dragging across his racing pulse. When he speaks it’s not an admonishment, not a preface to being struck. It’s nothing more than a whisper, in a tone that Jon has never heard from him before:

“You are stunning, Jonathan.”

“Untie me,” Jon whispers, and Elias obeys.

As soon as his arms are free, Jon pulls him in, heedless of the position of his lower body and of his still-masked eyes. Elias indulges him in a messy kiss, drawing a whine from his throat. Jon clutches at his collar with a fierce grip. His thighs are still spread and bound, but Elias pushes him down onto his back, unzipping his trousers in one fluid motion. He must not bother with any other clothing, because the next thing that Jon feels is his achingly hard cock pressed up against his wet warmth.

Elias enters him with a long, deep moan that takes Jon apart with just the sound. It hurts everywhere they touch — his thighs, his arse being pressed unceremoniously into the duvet — but he doesn’t care. Jon pulls Elias’s tie free and tugs him down, hungrily meeting his mouth as he thrusts into him.

Elias wastes no time in fucking him with abandon, hips slamming against his own in a bruising rhythm. Arcs of energy thrum between them, white-hot and jagged in their intensity. Jon wraps his arms around Elias’s neck and lets himself be carried by something he does not understand but trusts implicitly. It feels right, like he’s a leaf swaying in the wind — at once powerless to choose its path, yet powerful in its ability to rest, anywhere at all.

His last thought before everything goes white is _this — this is how it is supposed to feel,_ this is what he had been baffled by his whole life when everyone else would whisper and gossip in the school hallways. Now he knows: it’s good, it’s his, _Elias_ is his, for now and for ever.

It feels as if Elias is wrapped up in his every thought, in body and mind, and when he comes, Elias goes with him.

Elias collapses over him, and Jon can feel his breath heavy against his neck. They just lie there for moments, still connected in a way that makes words feel sloppy and inadequate. Then Elias lifts the blindfold from Jon’s face, his touch featherlight.

As his sight returns, everything that had existed in its place flows out of him as if a broken dam. Energy is replaced by enervation; connectedness replaced by shame. His thighs throb under the rope that bites into his skin, and sticky sweat drips down his neck and hips and calves. He’s an empty shell, and he shivers under Elias’s body.

“Elias,” Jon whispers, his voice raspy. “Elias, what was that?”

“Everything you are supposed to be, my darling,” Elias says.

He offers nothing else, but Elias takes him in his arms, and his kiss is tender in the dark.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm working on an aftercare scene for this because writing them soft bantering is one of my favorite things :3
> 
> title from psalm 139:11-12


End file.
